Hungary for Jesus

Here's the first in a series of posts about my travels through Eastern Europe in 1990. As I explained in an earlier post, twelve of us were travelling as part of a Christian missionary organisation called Youth With A Mission (YWAM). Our journey began in Hungary on 19 May.  However, this wasn't our initial destination. We attempted to cross into Czechoslovakia shortly after leaving Baden, a small town on the outskirts of Vienna, Austria. However, without pre-authorised visas, we were denied entry at the border. 

Our leader, Tim Coates, decided to head for Hungary. This time, we were more successful, arriving in Balatonfüred late in the afternoon, on the shores of Lake Balaton. We spent the next eight days at a local campground, building our esprit de corps and rehearsing a street drama called The Tale of Two Kingdoms. More about that shortly. The women lived in one large canvas tent while the men lived in another. Two married couples, a Swiss couple plus Tim and his wife Jo, had their own small tents.

The lake proved to be a popular summer holiday destination. As the weekend approached, Empty campsites around us began to fill. Our portable boom box blasting out an instrumental soundtrack certainly drew a crowd. Before we knew it, locals had gathered on folding chairs and sun loungers to watch us rehearse, including on more than one occasion, several topless women. It was an eye-opening introduction to European sunbathing etiquette. The images below, pulled from the web, provide a good sense of the campground's location.

On 28 May, we packed up our campsite and headed west for the city of Debrecen, Hungary’s second-largest city by population. At the time, it was barely 100km from the Soviet border, that is, the territory which subsequently became the sovereign state of Ukraine. For the next 11 days, families from a progressive Pentecostal church hosted us in their homes. Our visit was coordinated by an enthusiastic local who'd witnessed us rehearsing in Balatonfured the previous week.

The city’s proximity to the Soviet Union was abundantly clear from the moment we drove into town. I still vividly recall passing a large military compound. It was surrounded by high concrete slab walls. However, through the metal grill gates, we caught a glimpse of dozens and dozens of artillery tanks parked in long rows. I’d never seen so much military firepower in one location, that is, until we visited Bucharest a few months later. More about that another time.

Over the years. I’ve tried to identify the location of this massive tank parking lot. As best I can tell, it was possibly military barracks located at MH Bocskai István 11. Páncélozott Hajdúdandár in Debrecen. It was the first of many reminders that NATO and the Warsaw Pact were once locked in a relentless ideological battle, backed by unprecedented military might. Nothing about life in New Zealand or Australia could have prepared us for such an extraordinary experience.

We filled our days with a range of activities, including street performances in the centre of town and a memorable day trip to a gypsy church near the Russian border. As a former university tutor of 20th-century political science, living on the opposite side of the globe, I couldn't believe I was a mere handful of miles from the Soviet Union. 

We also spent several days training the local youth group to perform our street drama. In the image above, you can see them performing at their local church. The photo above it was taken in Kossuth Square outside the Great Reformed Church, one of Debrecen's iconic buildings. I've pulled an image of the church from the web in the bottom photo above. 

The image that opens this post is our group performing on the street in central Debrecen. In case you're curious, Jatekterem, the sign on the store window, translates to amusement arcade. In other words, we were performing outside a supermarket featuring a video games parlour. I'd later write in a travel diary that our time in Debrecen, along with a church group in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, was the best local contact we made during our entire time in Eastern Europe.

On 8 June, we drove almost the entire length of Hungary to Szombathely, a regional city located less than ten kilometres from the Austrian border. Our route took us back through Budapest. I recall driving along the Danube riverbank in crawling traffic, but little else. Sadly, for a second time in two weeks, we stopped for little more than a brief bathroom break. It would be another 17 years before I’d return to finally explore Hungary’s picturesque capital.

According to Wikipedia, Szombathely is Hungary's oldest recorded city. It was founded by the Romans in 45AD. The photos above, taken from the web, show County Hall, home to the region's municipal council, along with the main city square (Attribution: Pennyjey, Flickr). Much of the city's architecture reminds me of nearby Vienna and Graz in Austria.

For three days, we were hosted by a local house church. A house church is a group of Christians who gather to pray and worship in private homes rather than a traditional church building. House churches were common in the early days of Christianity. In modern times, they've become popular again among Christian denominations operating outside dominant institutional churches, such as the Catholic or Eastern Orthodox churches.

We'd been invited to Szombathely by a church member who'd seen us performing on the streets of Debrecen. They arranged for us to perform at a non-Christian children's Summer camp, and assisted with several street performances in the centre of town. Our performances, which we colloquially called "open airs", were typically structured around three distinct activities. 

We'd begin the program with a 15-minute non-verbal production set to a soundtrack on a suitcase-sized boom box. It told the story of God creating heaven and earth, and populating it with the human race, the temptation of Eve in the Garden of Eden and the subsequent corruption of the human spirit by Satan. The drama then concluded with the story of salvation through the ministry and crucifixion of Christ.

A member of our group would then deliver a message of salvation, translated by one of our local hosts, before the program would conclude with us ministering to anyone who came forward to learn more.  We'd typically conduct this program once a day. On some occasions, we'd draw a crowd of close to two hundred people. The image above shows us performing in Varna, on the Black Sea coast - but more about that experience later.

After three weeks of travelling in Hungary, we headed for Romania. For four days, we travelled through Austria and Yugoslavia before reaching our final destination in Pitesti, Romania, on June 14. Follow this link to learn more.